The post Easy Conversion Rate Optimization Strategies: A Practical Guide On How To Optimize Your Store appeared first on DigitalMarketer.
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If you’re a store or website owner, one of your biggest goals is likely to increase customer conversions. After all, successful conversion rate optimization can make a world of difference when it comes to growing your business.
What if we say you can take your struggling to store to a successful one by just making some small tweaks?
Yes. There are plenty of proven tactics that can help you increase conversion rate of your store while also boosting profits. And no, you don’t need much technical experience for that.
In this comprehensive guide, we will outline everything from understanding Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) to implementing easy-to-understand strategies that will take your store’s results up another level.
Ready? Let’s dive in!
Simply put, the conversion rate is the percentage of visitors to your website or store who take a desired action. It can be anything from signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase, sharing content, or downloading an app.
Most often, though, it’s used to measure how many people are actually buying something on your site.
Conversion rate is a good way to measure the success of your store. The higher the rate, the better it is for you in terms of sales and customer acquisition.
The answer to this question depends on the industry you’re in, as well as factors such as:
Generally speaking, though, a good conversion rate is anything above 2%.

However, remember that improving your conversion rate is always an ongoing process. If you have a decent conversion rate today, there might be room for improvement tomorrow. That’s why you should continuously track and analyze your data to fine-tune performance.
Conversion rate optimization (also often called CRO Optimization) is the process of improving the performance of a website or store through measures that increase conversions.
In other words, it’s about identifying which elements on your site work best and which need to be improved. CRO can involve testing different design elements, making changes to the user experience, or even running campaigns with special offers and discounts.
The primary goal of CRO is to increase your store’s overall performance by improving customer satisfaction, increasing sales, and driving more traffic to the site. Doing so can make more money and improve your bottom line.
But how do you calculate the conversion rate?
Calculating your conversion rate is fairly simple. All you have to do is take the total number of visitors to your website or store, divide it by the total number of conversions, and multiply by 100. The resulting figure will give you an idea of how effectively your store converts visitors into customers.

For example, if you had 1000 visitors to your site and 24 converted, your conversion rate would be 2.4%.
But remember that you need to define a conversion first. This could be a purchase, sign-up, or download — all of which can be tracked inside your Google Analytics dashboard.
Also, remember to associate your goal with the relevant page. For example, if your goal is to get newsletter sign-ups and the form is on the contact page or a product page, you will only count the website visitors on that specific page, not the home page or others.
That’s how you accurately calculate the conversion rate.
But why do businesses get crazy about conversion optimization? Why are conversion rates important?
CRO optimization allows you to maximize the potential of every visitor who comes to your store. This means more sales, leads, and customers – all without spending a dime on advertising.
Besides the numbers, the conversion rate optimization process also helps you understand customers’ psychology. You get to know what motivates people on your site and which channels are the most effective at driving high-quality traffic.
This information can be invaluable when crafting your brand’s digital marketing strategy.
In addition, CRO also helps you identify opportunities to improve user experience, making visitors more likely to trust your brand and add to your website’s conversion rate.
Finally, conversion optimization allows you to maximize your profits, reduce costs, and increase customer satisfaction –what every brand desires!
Now that you understand what is conversion rate and how to calculate it, let’s walk you through the core elements of an effective CRO process.
The six elements of a successful CRO process can be grouped into two categories:

Here’s how each one of them affects your site’s conversion rate:
Let’s admit it. Slow websites are annoying. This is true to the point that website visitors almost immediately bounce off a page if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.
This not only impacts your conversion rate but also hurts your website’s SEO.
So, make sure your website loads in under 3 seconds, or be prepared to lose more and more prospects.
Looks matter. A Lot!
If you have a professionally designed, eye-pleasing website and landing page, users will automatically feel welcomed and comfortable to navigate.
So, naturally, a good design will drive actions and add to the conversion rate.
The next thing site visitors notice on your product pages or landing pages are the “words.”
Users are more likely to spend time or take a desired action on your website if the copy speaks to their needs and desires.
So, hire an experienced and highly-skilled copywriter who knows how to research your target audience and write compelling copy.
This should be easy to understand.
When shopping online, people don’t stay on a single web page. They often like to check out different items and browse product pages.

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This is where a decent website structure can aid in conversion.
If your website is easy-to-navigate, users are likely to stay on your website and move closer to a conversion.
On the other hand, if the structure is complex, they will most likely bounce off.
Next up are your call-to-action buttons. Although they’re part of the website copy, they play a different role. While website copy influences decision-making, CTAs are often the key drivers behind conversion.
Words and phrases like “Order Now For Free Shipping,” “Access Now,” or “Contact Today For A Free Quote” have the power to influence people’s decisions and drive actions.
So, choose your CTAs wisely.
Finally, your website forms and their optimization are critical to the conversion rate.
If your web form is long (with unnecessary fields) or too complicated (requiring extra steps), it will negatively impact the conversion rate.
The idea is to keep them short, sweet, and simple.
These are some of the core elements of a successful CRO strategy that can help brands get more out of their digital marketing efforts.
Now that you know what makes a successful conversion funnel, here are a few tips to increase the conversion rate of your ecommerce site or store.
Split testing or A/B testing is often used to optimize the website and make it more conversion friendly.
It basically involves creating two versions of a web page with slight variations and testing them out on live audiences to see which one performs better.

Though you can test several things, it’s a nice idea to test variations of:
However, make sure you don’t change several things together. Why?
Because it will make it almost impossible to figure out which change actually had an impact on the conversion rate.
So, don’t overdo the variations.
A search bar is a must-have for any website or store with plenty of products.
It helps users quickly find what they’re looking for and improves the on-site experience.
This was even confirmed by Forrester Research (a research and consulting company). It found that almost 43% of web users head straight to the search bar. Plus, it increases their chances of conversion by 2-3 times and helps prospects take action.
That’s one way how the search bar helps. But there’s another way.
You can analyze search queries to understand user behavior and tailor your website according to their preferences.
Remember the core elements of CRO optimization?
As already mentioned, forms play an important role when it comes to optimizing the conversion rate.
That’s why it’s important to create simple forms with minimum fields and help users get through the process effortlessly. Also, make sure you add helpful prompts or auto-fill features to reduce friction and expedite the process. These simple tweaks can make a world of difference.
You also need to apply the same logic when creating forms for lead generation or any other purpose. Keep them short and sweet.

Fact: “Using a quiz-like form to capture information has the potential to triple conversions.” (WPForms)
So, get creative with your forms to get more conversions. Use a quiz format, add a lead magnet, or incorporate a chatbot. They will help you get more prospects and conversions.
The idea is to make the process simple and engaging for users.
The CTAs you use on your website can be a game changer.
Good CTAs are clear and concise and should help users take the desired action without any confusion. How?
Well, you need to come up with CTAs that are:
Besides the above, effective CTAs usually invoke a sense of urgency or achievement. For instance, words like “Unlock” or “Get Exclusive Access” play with users’ psychology and make them feel rewarded. It creates a sense of exclusivity and often leads to higher conversions.
Similarly, phrases like “Order Now Before Stock Runs Out” or “Free Shipping For Next 10 Hours” trigger emotions of urgency and encourage prospects to take action quickly.
This is how you can leverage compelling copy to make your CTAs more effective and boost your conversion rates.
Plus, you can also try changing the following CTA elements:
Refer back to tip number 1 and do split testing to see what works better.
User experience plays a key role when it comes to CRO optimization. That’s why you must ensure your website or store provides a pleasant user experience.
How?

Think from a customer’s perspective – what would make your site more enjoyable for them?
Here are a couple of aspects to focus on:
Navigation: Make sure your website or store has an intuitive navigation system that makes it easy for users to find what they’re looking for.
Content: Create well-structured, organized, and informative content that is both easy to grasp and adds value. Make sure your content is tailored to the readers and resonates with them.
Layout: Design a website or store with clean lines and an organized layout that makes it easy to read and navigate.
Optimization: Optimize your website or store for speed, performance, and mobile devices.
By addressing all the above, you can enhance the user experience and increase conversions.
So, focus on enhancing the user experience to get more sales and leads from your website or store.
A heat map is a powerful tool that helps you determine where users click on your web pages.
For instance, heat maps show which sections or elements of your website or store are getting the most attention and which ones are being neglected.
Yes. You can actually find out if users are paying attention to the navigation bar, CTA buttons, or links that you have carefully placed on your website. Some tools even have an eye-tracking integration to tell you where users look first when they land on your ecommerce website.
This can give you greater insights into user behavior and help you identify:
Overall, heat maps are excellent for ecommerce conversion optimization as they help you understand what elements of your store need more focus and attention.
Pop-ups are great for boosting conversions. They help you capture customer information such as email address, name, phone number, and more.
You can use pop-ups for a variety of purposes, such as:
Pop-ups are also extremely effective in retargeting customers. You can use them to show special offers or discounts to customers who have already visited your website or store.

However, despite having an excellent conversion rate of 11.09%, you need to be careful when using pop-ups, as too many can annoy customers and drive them away. Also, they must have fast loading speeds and easy-to-spot exit options, otherwise, it could turn off the existing traffic and drive them away.
So, be cautious with pop-ups and use them right!
Live chat is a great way to boost conversions. It enables potential customers to chat with you directly and get their queries answered in real time. This helps build trust and customer loyalty, which leads to more conversions.
But if you don’t have the resources for a live chat team, you can use chatbots instead. Chatbots are automated conversational AI systems that can answer frequently asked questions (FAQs) and help customers with their queries.
However, make sure you choose a chatbot that fits your budget, integrates well with your system, and aligns with your business goals.
So, these were some of the most effective conversion rate optimization strategies you can use to increase conversion rate of your store.
Besides the above, you can try:
These are all proven techniques that boost website conversion rates by turning website visitors into paying customers!
However, instead of relying only on tricks of the trade, developing strong ecommerce marketing concepts is highly recommended to get ahead in the commerce world.
While this guide will surely help you get started with your store’s CRO optimization, there’s much more to CRO than just tips and tricks.

Ecommerce success depends on understanding your target audience and developing a suitable marketing strategy for your store.
So, before starting your optimization efforts, you need to focus on the basics, like understanding the core pillars of ecommerce, creating customer avatars, and developing a sales-worthy offer. How can you learn this all?
Our Ecommerce Marketing Mastery Certificate offers advanced ecommerce marketing knowledge so that you start strong and optimize your store from the ground up.
Don’t have time on your hands? Consider hiring a specialized ecommerce agency to take care of ecommerce conversion optimization and marketing for you.
With the right knowledge, tools, and team, you’d be well on your way to building a profitable ecommerce business.
The post Easy Conversion Rate Optimization Strategies: A Practical Guide On How To Optimize Your Store appeared first on DigitalMarketer.
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Today, consumers have an increasing number of options for how to interact with your brand. These include virtual channels like social media and influencer marketing.
While it’s great that technology has provided us with plenty of new methods and marketing tactics, it also means you need to up your game. As a result, customers are placing a higher value on the overall shopping experience than ever before.
The way your brand presents itself at various touch points is a major factor in conversions. Customer journey optimization works to raise overall customer satisfaction (CSAT) and promotes growth in your business.
Optimizing the customer journey involves mapping out and analyzing every touchpoint in the buying process. You can then improve the buyer’s journey by eliminating friction at each of these.

This encompasses all available touchpoints, including digital advertising, content and social media marketing. Customer journey optimization improves processes behind the camera, so to speak, so your brand, team, and products can be the stars of the show.
When you optimize the customer journey, you stand to gain several benefits.
Mapping out the customer journey paints a clear picture of your current marketing and sales strategies. You can easily identify redundancies and remove these by analyzing them from an outside viewpoint. Long story short is that you’ll save money on operational costs and labor.
For example, simple customer actions like order tracking might be better and more efficiently managed by a virtual receptionist, freeing your team up to work on tasks that are more obviously profitable, such as sales.
Customer journey optimization helps you cut out the fat. A well-trimmed buying process is much more efficient when it comes to how your team members’ time is used. By focusing their efforts on the most valuable touchpoints and prospect interactions, they’ll be able to generate more leads and conversions in less time.
Part of this optimization might mean investing in software that gives the customer more control over their journey. For example, if you offer co-working spaces, you may wish to invest in coworking space management software that empowers users to book and pay for rooms without having to speak to a team member in person or over the phone.

The results of the 2021 Statista survey shown above found that inter-departmental siloing is the biggest challenge when optimizing the customer journey. This is where customer journey mapping rises to the challenge.
With a big-picture view, those working at the top of the funnel will better understand where their prospects are heading, meaning they’re more able to prepare them for their next interaction. Likewise, salespeople working in the middle of the funnel can give feedback on the quality of leads and help prospecting teams adjust their strategies accordingly.
Many business benefits arise from customer journey optimization.
Customers may encounter friction at every step of their journey. We’re not talking about Newtonian physics that explain how your car grips a road; we’re talking about obstacles to conversion that are built into your buying processes.
Customer friction is something you must overcome for the consumer to take the next step. Common causes include:
Let’s take friction caused by duration as an example. You could utilize a service that enables call forwarding or queue callbacks to help lower customer wait times. This would optimize the buyer journey and make it less arduous for the customer.

An often overlooked tactic is to focus on the obstacle causing the friction rather than the nudge itself. For example, you can make conversions easier so your prospects can sprint their way down the sales funnel.
In the early part of the journey, this might include optimization by way of marketing and communication channels. If your target audience is Gen Z and Millenials, for example, forgo traditional channels and build brand awareness on the social media platforms they use instead.
There are many eCommerce marketing strategies that can help you optimize interactions and reduce friction.
An optimized customer journey gives consumers a more streamlined experience. Rather than being distracted by unnecessary steps, it ensures just the right amount of interactions and information.
This type of focused effort from your sales and marketing team means you can spend more time singing the benefits of your products or services. More importantly, it ensures each experience focuses on the specific pain points of your buyer personas.
Part of the optimization process is building customary journey maps that achieve a high level of success. Each one should focus on a different buyer persona. These custom journeys are just one way that optimization personalizes the customer experience (CX).

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Building interactions for each segment’s preferred channels increases customer satisfaction. You can also use CRM solutions, customer journey management platforms, and marketing automation to hyper-personalize every interaction. This might range from having live agents and chatbots with access to customer account information to suggesting products your buyers will be interested in.
Optimizing the customer journey can help you achieve various objectives, but it’s best to set your sights on a few specific goals for your business. This will help to guide you.
The following are some examples of business goals:
Buyer personas help you segment your audience according to their attitudes, values, behaviors, and demographic information. The first step is to identify your best buyers and your least valuable customer types.

When building your customer avatars, you should find common factors or indicators to help with optimizing customer journeys and areas like lead qualification.
To get started, pick the buyer persona that most closely fits your business goals. If this is your first time refreshing the customer journey, you’ll likely want to focus on the personas that represent the best lifetime value.
Now you have a better understanding of who your customers are, it’s time to start visualizing the purchasing journey. You need to map out every customer touchpoint or interaction from beginning to end.
This includes every channel that’s used to create brand awareness, from Instagram and Facebook marketing to email newsletters and word-of-mouth referrals. It also includes third-party channels like affiliate marketing and other partner programs.
From here, you can start optimizing and connecting actions to build a customer journey that’s robust and efficient.
With a rough draft of the customer journey in place, you can begin to make alterations and improvements. Eliminate redundant or friction-building interactions, and map out pathways that allow for a seamless transition from one touchpoint to another. Ensure these make sense for the buyer persona involved.
For instance, when nudging Gen Zers from the brand awareness to the subscription stage, you could focus on social media only. This means eliminating CTAs that involve newsletter subscriptions or inbound calling campaigns for this particular journey.
By now, you should have a close to ideal journey for each buyer persona. These are optimized when friction is reduced and your team is set up for success. The only problem is that nothing is ideal.
No matter how much you prepare, there will always be room for improvement, so you’ll need to arm yourself with the best tools for the job. Customer relationship management software is crucial. Other marketing tools can also help you automate and track each customer’s journey.

While you’re at it, don’t forget about the wealth of digital marketing resources available online.
Completing your optimized customer journey map is only the beginning. You’ll need to take this process and repeat it for each business goal and buyer persona. Of course, you can use existing maps as templates for building new customer journeys.
Using marketing tools, you should be able to track the success of your freshly optimized touchpoints and overall conversion rates. Use analytics tools and trusty A/B testing to hone in on what’s working and what isn’t.
Continue the process ad infinitum and reap the rewards of providing a seamless, frictionless customer experience.
Businesses like yours desire their operations to run as smoothly as possible. Your customers will hold you to these same standards during the buying cycle. Now, at least, you should have the tools and team to identify what your customers want.
This is the time to map out and optimize your customer journeys. That is, unless you’d rather wait around while they flock to competitors that offer a painless purchase process. Why not start improving your customer satisfaction levels today?
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Your marketing clients are just like you.
As a marketing consultant or agency owner, you want to see:
These metrics are the foundations of a successful business (whether it’s a marketing agency or an ecommerce drop shipping business). If you don’t have traffic, you won’t have customers. And if you don’t focus on your customer lifetime value, you won’t have a sustainable business model.
This is exactly why these are the metrics your marketing clients want to see. They want to know you’re increasing their brand awareness and marketing to their customers after the first sale. Because that’s how you build a long-term relationship with the brands you work with and create a marketing consultancy that makes people ask, “How the heck did you pull that off?!”
And it all starts with focusing on these 5 metrics and sharing them with your clients.
Every marketing client wants to look at their Google Analytics dashboard and see that beautiful up and to the right line that signifies they’re getting more traffic than ever before. Traffic is a huge part of marketing because it leads to the first stage of the Customer Value Journey, Awareness.

People can’t buy your client’s products if they don’t know their products exist! With increased traffic, more people see their brand. The more people that see their brand, the more people can buy their products.
Just like 1+1 = 2, more traffic leads to more customers. Well, as long as you’re making sure to attract the right kind of traffic. Not only can you show your clients their increased traffic to social media (impressions) or their website (through Google Analytics), but you can also show them the demographics behind this traffic. This shows that these aren’t random people who *might* be interested in buying their products. These visitors are their customer avatar, which means they can quickly turn into customers with the right funnel.
Here are a few traffic metrics to share with your clients:
Engagement is the number of likes, comments, shares, and interactions people have with your content. For example, if someone comments on your Instagram post—that’s engagement. If they read your blog post—that’s engagement. If they reply like your tweet—that’s engagement.
And that’s the start of turning a viewer into a customer. Like the Customer Value Journey outlines, the first step in the customer journey is awareness. It’s the moment someone finds out your brand and products exist. It’s a crucial moment, but what’s even more important is what comes afterward…
…the first time someone actively engages with your brand.
Engage is the second stage of the Customer Value Journey. It’s so important because it’s like this person just raised their hand and said, “You have products that help me solve one of my problems!”

Your marketing clients want to see engagement because that tells them you’re doing your job as a marketer. You’re increasing brand awareness to the right people, who are now engaging with their brand so they can move to the next steps of the Customer Value Journey, Subscription, Conversion, Excitement, Ascension, Promotor, and Ambassador.
Here are a few engagement metrics to share with your clients:
With traffic and engagement comes subscribers (if you’ve properly built out your marketing funnel!). Your goal as a marketer is to turn traffic into subscribers, building a deeper relationship between brand and customer avatar. You never want to house your audience on someone else’s platform, like Facebook or Google. You want to take your social media or website visitors and add them to your email list as soon as you can.
This is stage 3 of the Customer Value Journey and usually comes alongside a lead magnet freebie that people opt-in for. For example, you could give away a free webinar or a discount on commerce products.

Your clients want to see that traffic and engagement have a predictable ROI. That predictable ROI comes from knowing, for example, 1% of their subscribers convert. Based on the average number of people subscribing per day, you can predict how many customers and how much revenue they’ll make.
Just like you want your marketing consultancy or agency to have a predictable income, your clients want the same thing, too.
Here are a few subscriber metrics to share with your clients:
This is the metric you probably didn’t need us to tell you about. Of course, your marketing clients want to see more customers! More customers mean they’re getting an ROI from your services. Understandably, this is really important for your clients. They want to see the numbers that prove their money is in good hands.
As a marketing consultant or agency, transparency around these numbers is a huge part of having a healthy, long-term relationship with your clients. Putting together SOPs that help your employees and contractors keep clients in “the know” is worth your time.
And remember—your clients are business owners (or executives). They’ve put their heart, soul, blood, sweat, AND tears into this business. They’ve dedicated late nights and early mornings. They’ve probably missed some pretty important events in their friend’s and family’s lives. This business means a lot to them, and getting to see more customers buying is special.
Make it a special moment for them by creating milestones to celebrate. For example, when they reach 1,000 customers, send them a gift or make sure to take the time to acknowledge it. Or, you can send gifts at certain revenue goals, like their first $500,000.
Here are a few customer metrics to share with your clients:

After someone becomes a customer, the marketing doesn’t stop. Conversion isn’t the last stage of the Customer Value Journey for a reason. There are FOUR more stages after it! Conversion is the halfway point of the Customer Value Journey, and there’s a lot that happens afterward.
When someone purchases a product, it’s time to get them excited (stage 5 of the Customer Value Journey). This excitement stage isn’t about upsells. It’s about showing them that they made the right decision by buying from you. This can be an unexpected free training, discount code, or stickers inside their ecommerce package.
Excitement leads to ascension (stage 6 of the Customer Value Journey). In ascension, your customer goes from buying your low-tier or middle-tier package to your highest (or one of your higher) tier packages. At DigitalMarketer, this is when someone goes from being a Lab member to becoming a Certified Partner or buying a ticket to Traffic & Conversion Summit.

Think of ascension as the ladder that takes your revenue from “Awesome!” to “Holy crap!” This is where you increase customer lifetime value and turn your client’s brand into a long-term, sustainable business. When the funnels are in place to turn first-time customers into multiple-purchasing customers (and eventually raving fans of your brand and products), you’re in the magic zone.
Here are a few customer lifetime metrics to share with your clients:
Clients are happy to outsource their marketing to your consultancy or agency. Marketing is a lot of work (you know this as a business owner!), and it’s monumentally easier to have somebody else do it for you. It’s even easier to have the person who’s already doing your marketing…keep doing it.
That’s why you want to show your marketing clients these 5 metrics:
These are the metrics telling your clients that you’re increasing their brand awareness, qualifying leads, and ensuring they don’t build their business on someone else’s platform. They show an ROI when you turn those subscribers into customers and increase their customer lifetime value.
Wouldn’t you want to keep working with the marketer who did this for your company?
The answer is a big, obvious YES.
And with these metrics, that marketer can be you.
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